International conference
Educational inequalities and living spaces
10 and 11 September 2015
RENNES, Villejean Campus
Conference organized by the ESO-Rennes and CREAD laboratories
Call for proposals
This conference is about educational inequalities in general, especially those related to children's and
adolescents' living contexts and spaces. Education is understood fairly broadly here, as
encompassing all the influences that an individual experiences throughout his or her lifetime, whether
they stem from deliberate educational actions (in the family, school, educational structures, etc.) or
from the environment, without any real educational intention. It also relates to the acquisitions
resulting from interactions between individuals and their physical and human environment, including
transmission by voluntary action and by immersion. This global, cross-cutting approach requires
particular attention to be paid to the analysis of the plurality of contexts in which children and
adolescents live. The notion of context relates to the effects of constraints and stimulations exerted
by the social spaces and institutions constituting individuals' and groups' frameworks of action. The
context is therefore at once social, geographical (spaces, living spaces, territories), demographic,
sociological, cultural, economic and political.
We posit that social trajectories are differentiated according to these contexts and living spaces. We
consequently analyze inequalities from the point of view of distance: geographical – related to the
difficulties of mobility and access to facilities – as well as social and individual distance. Disparities in
these respects can result in inequalities, given the differentiation of the offer of facilities and activities
in different territories, and the objective or subjective difficulty of accessing them. This global and
cross-cutting approach requires that the different dimensions of adolescents' educational paths be
taken into account.
w Under the label "context effect", in general, or "neighbourhood effect", in particular,
educational inequalities have a spatial dimension. These inequalities may be between the
académies (the regional educational authorities) in metropolitan France and those in the
overseas territories, or within metropolitan France between rural areas, peri-urban areas, ZUS
("sensitive" urban zones) or inner cities. Apart from statistical correlations, this conference aims
to illuminate the processes at work in the production of inequalities. What is the impact of local
educational action on these disparities? We know for example that funding, the training offer
and the teaching profession are not the same from one institution and one académie to the
next. What is the share of the characteristics of the place and that of the social composition of
the population in that place? What is the weight of families, neighbours, peers, and
professionals in these context effects? How do the strategies of adolescents and their parents,
the choice or no choice of families, the influence of siblings and friends, and the expectations
of professionals contribute to producing these educational inequalities? The symbolic
significations of places of abode and schooling, as well as their impact on the practices of the
actors concerned, would also need to be analyzed to further our understanding of "context
effects".
w In the field of free time and leisure, inequalities are just as prevalent. Several recent studies
have emphasized the significant differentiation of individual practices according to gender, age
and position in the life cycle. While these inequalities are usually analyzed and explained in
terms of social and cultural determinants, this conference is intended also to examine their
spatial dimension. The possibilities of access to services and facilities, as localized and
unequally distributed resources, depend closely on the place of abode and the material and
social configurations of the populations' living spaces. How do these influence choices of
activities and leisure practices? Do they interfere with the nature, structure and places of
practices? How do they correlate with social, cultural and gender differences? Linking up
leisure practices with the characteristics of living spaces should, in turn, make it possible to
reveal the existence of "context effects". In other words, do the educational resources
mobilized in the framework of free time depend on the level of facilities, the available services,
the diversity of the activities proposed, the nature of local policies implemented in the
territories on a daily basis, and the meaning they have for adolescents?
w Within adolescents' leisure activities, we would like in particular to investigate digital
practices and their link to other recreational and school activities. How do territorial contexts
influence digital practices? For example, based on recent research, it seems surprising that
adolescents' digital activities in rural areas point in two radically different directions: either the
combination of a lack of facilities, cultural capital and access to internet increases aversion to
digital technologies, and no compensation effect makes up for these young people's isolation;
or the territorialized actors make an effort to provide adequate facilities and digital mediation
to compensate partially for isolation, through these digital technologies.
As a social product, space and its organization inevitably have differences that reproduce and
generate inequalities. The main purpose of this conference is to decipher social logics in so far as
they influence, produce, use and play on spaces, in order to understand and shed light on the nature
of differences in the educational field. In other words, how does the diversity of spaces, with the
different dimensions constituting them, participate in the production of inequalities? From the point
of view of the context that is both social and spatial, these inequalities can be understood through
the lens of diversity of types of distance separating individuals and determining their attitudes to
school, leisure, and cultural and sports activities, in the use of services and facilities or in the
mobilization of various educational resources. By putting the spatial dimension of social relations at
the heart of our reflection, we hope to receive proposals that will enable us to cover various scales
(from local to global, micro to macro, etc.) and to reveal the diversity of the social and political
contexts in which such processes play out.
In order to cover the spatial dimension of educational inequalities, in the broad sense of the term, the
conference would also like to cross-compare the perspectives and contributions of the various social
sciences and humanities. The aim is to analyse how the different socio-spatial contexts influence
young people's educational trajectories: the school context, the sports, cultural and recreational
context, and the digital environment, which cuts across the former two. To explain and understand
the correlation between educational inequalities and living spaces, we need to take into account the
support provided for young people within and outside of the space-time of school, in their activities,
the services they use, and the resources they mobilize. The territorial contexts and the economic,
social and cultural disparities of living spaces and families, which have been growing recently, directly
influence the living conditions of adolescents and their sports, cultural and leisure activities. Proposals
concerning school and/or other activities that socialize children and adolescents would be welcome,
to show the effect of family, school, recreational and digital contexts on the construction of objective
and subjective disparities, and the consequent production of educational inequalities. Reflection
must be soundly supported by methodologies that highlight the articulation between formal
educational environments (school, extracurricular, sports or artistic) and more informal ones (family,
peers, free time, leisure and digital), to understand the origins and functioning of educational
inequalities in relation to living spaces and contexts. Particular attention will be paid to pluridisciplinary approaches.
In addition to regular participation (papers), we will also welcome other forms of presentation,
such as posters, situated presentations, video or sound media, forums, etc. The main language of
the conference will be French but proposals in English will be accepted, accompanied if possible
by material in French (slides, abstract, etc.). There will not be simultaneous interpretation during
the working sessions.
Deadlines for proposal submissions
•
•
Proposals must be received by: 3 0 M a r c h 2 0 1 5
The authors selected will be informed by: 1 8 M a y 2 0 1 5
Guidelines for proposals
Proposed papers must be submitted in digital format before 30 March 2015. They must
include the following details:
• Title
• Author(s) surname and first name
• Institution
• Position
• Abstract (no more than 3,000 characters).
To be emailed to the following address: [email protected]
Scientific committee
Papers will be selected by an international scientific committee, composed of the following members:
Olivier DAVID (Université Rennes 2) – Chairman, Anne BARRERE (Université Paris Descartes), Isabelle
DANIC (Université Rennes 2), Marc DEMEUSE (Université de Mons), Barbara FOURQUET-CHAUPRADE
(Université de Genève), John MC KENDRICK (Glasgow University), Pierre MERLE (ESPE de Bretagne),
Sylvie OCTOBRE (French Ministry of Culture), Audrey OSLER (Leeds University), Didier PAQUELIN
(Université Bordeaux 3), Michel PERRON (Université du Québec à Chicoutimi), Pascal PLANTARD
(Université Rennes 2), Serge PROULX (Université du Québec à Montréal), Agnès VAN ZANTEN (CNRS).
Organizing committee
The organizing committee is made up of the following members: Olivier DAVID (Université Rennes 2) –
Chairman, Patrice CARO (Université de Caen-Basse-Normandie), Isabelle DANIC (Université Rennes 2),
Halima DELAMARRE (Université Rennes 2), Jérôme ENEAU (Université Rennes 2), Barbara FONTAR
(Université Rennes 2), Magali HARDOUIN (ESPE de Bretagne), Emmanuelle HELLIER (Université Rennes
2), Régis KEERLE (Université Rennes 1), Mickaël LE MENTEC (Université Rennes 2), Agnès LEPRINCE
(ESPE de Bretagne), Claire MARZIN (Université Rennes 2), Brigitte MORIN (Université Rennes 2), Céline
PIQUEE (Université Rennes 2), Nicole PITON (Université Rennes 2), Pascal PLANTARD (Université Rennes
2), Louisa PLOUCHART (Université Rennes 2).
Practical information:
•
•
•
•
•
The conference will take place at the Université Rennes 2, on the Villejean campus.
Attendees and participants will be received in the lobby of the Maison de la
Recherche en Sciences Sociales (Bâtiment N)
Address: Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, Place du Recteur H. Le Moal,
CS 24307, 35043 RENNES Cedex
The conference is being organized by the ESO-Rennes and CREAD laboratories.
For further practical information, please contact:
o Nicole PITON: 02 99 14 17 86 – [email protected]
o Claire MARZIN: 02 99 14 17 84 – [email protected]
o Brigitte MORIN: 02 99 14 16 96 – [email protected]
o Gaëlle MENGUY: 02 23 22 58 96 – [email protected]
Conference email address: [email protected]
In partnership with: